


Diem

by Nordhumbrensian



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: But it's still domestic fluff, Established Relationship, M/M, Mentions of mental and physical illness, Possibly melancholic fluff might be the best description, Post-Canon, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, mention of suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:00:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26811037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nordhumbrensian/pseuds/Nordhumbrensian
Summary: A day in Edward Little's life.For bluebacchus, who requested "domestic bliss". This ended up more as "domestic bliss with a heavy dose of melancholy and lingering effects of Arctic experiences", sorry.
Relationships: Thomas Jopson/Lt Edward Little
Comments: 10
Kudos: 41
Collections: The Joplittle Fall Fic Exchange 2020





	Diem

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bluebacchus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluebacchus/gifts).



Edward wakes early, while the streets outside are still silent and dark. He slides out of bed, so as not to deprive Tom of the warmth, then turns and tucks Tom more deeply under the covers. Tom smiles without opening his eyes. 

Edward has won the argument that he should be the one to rise first, light the fires. He owes Tom this much, at least.

Once the fire in the grate is well caught, he dresses and goes downstairs, does the same for the tiny range in the kitchen, before shrugging on his coat to use the privy in the back yard and fetch water from the pump in the lane. 

It has snowed overnight, though the sky is clear now and the half moon lights his way. The fresh snow is already blackened with soot, and by midday it will have been churned brown with the filth of the lane. 

In the Arctic he had dreamed of the green of hedgerows and trees and meadows, of a countryside full of verdant life. But living in the country also means clean ice and drifts of untouched snow, white that stabs his eyes and brings bile to the back of his throat. Better the city with its greys and blacks and browns. They can take the train out into the country in the summer, when it is colourful and alive and safe. 

Back in the kitchen he fills the kettle and a saucepan and puts them to boil, slices yesterday’s bread to toast, places the butter where it will soften but not melt. His actions are routine, and routine soothes him.

He does not like snow, even in the city. 

Tom appears a few minutes later, and kisses Edward on the cheek before taking Edward’s coat and going out to the privy. The walls around the back yard are high, the gate solid and its hinges creak. There is space for little intimacies. 

When Tom comes back he presses himself to Edward’s back, cold from outside, wraps his arms around Edward’s waist and kisses his other cheek. This, too, is routine, though a routine that warms Edward more than the fire does. 

The water is boiling, and Edward pours from the kettle into the teapot, sets the bread by the fire and gently puts two eggs into the saucepan. Tom starts to sing softly. Edward would use his watch to time the eggs, but Tom’s mother had no watch and sang to time eggs, so Tom does too. 

The song sounds old, and too melancholy for such a task. 

“…she loveth another better than me-”

Edward puts his hand over Tom’s, feels the vibrations of his singing. 

The song finished, Tom steps back, and Edward serves them breakfast. There is no hurry. They always wake before the rest of the world and have no tasks that need started at this hour. 

They never talk over breakfast. Edward never feels like talking, though he would do if Tom ever started a conversation. For him, the early morning is a tabulation, a silent recitation of what they have and what they need to survive. Of money coming in and going out, of coal used and coal ordered, what food they have and what they need. His mental tally runs to the farthing and to the single lump of coal. 

There is so much he cannot do. So much he did not do. But this, keeping one man warm and fed and safe, he does. 

The first Christmas after they returned he had gone to his mother’s, taking Tom with him. Edward’s eldest brother, William, had been home from sea, and while their mother was immediately charmed by Tom, William was wary. 

William had suggested a walk, then said that their mother and Tom should stay where it was warm. Clear then, that he had wanted to talk to Edward. 

The streets had been busy with people going from house to house to wish well and celebrate. The two of them had stalked through the crowds, solemn crows in flocks of cheer. It had been difficult to keep up with William until his brother had noticed how hardgoing Edward was finding it and slowed his pace. They had walked out of town, crowds thinning until they were alone. They climbed a gate, and across a field, to where a rock sat on the side of the hill, too large for the farmer to remove. As children it had been their ship, their crow’s nest, where they had watched the ships in the channel and planned their own adventures.

Now it was just a rock. 

William had brushed the snow from it, invited Edward to sit next to him. There had been a few light flakes of snow in the air floating with barely a breath of a breeze; they could see the town and near sea, but no further. 

He hadn’t felt cold. Snow didn’t make him feel cold. Snow brought fear and dread and an empty pull in his stomach, but not cold. 

“I fear that Mr Jopson is a sea-anchor to you.” William had always been direct. 

“He is not.”

“I know that your health has suffered, and you may neither wish nor be able to return to sea, but you do not have to chain yourself to an invalid. I have heard people speak highly of him, and I am sure his friends will not let him starve or be without a roof over his head. You don’t have an obligation-”

“I do. Not only to him. As- as payment to the ones I failed and we left behind.”

He had felt his brother’s gaze on him, but had not turned his head. Instead he had fixed on the sea, where the haze blurred boundaries, where sea became air and ice and snow. 

His brother had been silent for a while. “I doubt that I would have done better in your place.”

Oh, but he would have done. Edward was the youngest, the shortest, the slowest in all kinds of ways. Always running to catch up. 

Edward had sighed. “I could tell you every way that I failed where another officer would not have done, but I have no wish to start an argument.” 

“I read the newspapers and the papers from the Admiralty. If you failed, you failed among the most loyal officers and men that the Navy has to offer, because they did not say a word against you.”

The tiny band which had survived had so many secrets, had told so many lies that they were bound with ties stronger than blood. Stronger than death. 

Edward had not said anything, and after a while William had said, “I have no wish to argue either. And perhaps I understand the feeling of obligation. But do you need to discharge it by being a nursemaid?”

“It- it isn’t like that. There are… there are too many days where I see no reason to leave my bed. No reason to eat. No reason to move. But I know I must for his sake. So I do.” 

“As bad as that?”

“Yes. But he gives me a reason to carry on.” He had huffed a mirthless laugh. “He is as much my nursemaid as I his.”

“Not just nursemaid.” William’s tone had completely changed. 

Edward had turned to face his brother. He was too tired to carry this particular lie, and sure enough that his brother would not have him hanged, if only for their mother’s sake. “No. Not just nursemaid.” 

“At least that makes sense.”

“Everything else I said is true as well. Even if we were not…” 

The silence had lain heavy, and he had turned away from his brother to look out to sea again. The gentle swell rolled the water like thick syrup. 

“You risk hanging.”

“You have no worry on that part. I would slit my throat to avoid the scandal.” He had not said - only if Tom would do the same. Better scandal than leave him to hang alone. “I would leave you to decide what lie to tell mother.” 

That had taken his brother aback. “I did not mean- Christ, Edward, you came back from the dead. You-” It had then been Edward’s turn to be surprised as William had grabbed him in a fierce hug. “You’re alive, and I do not give a damn about any sin or failure.” He had let go to look Edward in the eye. “I want you to stay alive.” 

He will write to William today, though when William will receive is another matter entirely. The last letter from him had come from India, and William could be anywhere by now. 

They wash the dishes, clean the table. The world is waking, though it is still dark. Edward dresses for outside, picks up his satchel of papers and kisses Tom on the forehead. 

Tom looks up at Edward as he says, “Come home for lunch.” 

“I will.” It barely needs saying. Edward always comes home early when it is cold, worry about Tom gnawing at him all the time he is away. 

It is a little over an hour to walk to the library. He is uncertain who pays for his subscription; he suspects Fitzjames, but he may be wrong. Men he has served under, friends of friends pass work for him; he knows that he has thoroughness and an eye for detail, but he also knows that what he does could be passed to any clerk. It is charity by any other name. So he does his work to the absolute best of his abilities to repay them. 

The walk is better in winter than summer. In winter he can bury himself in his scarf, hands deep in his pockets, unrecognisable among the other people on the streets. In summer people can see his face, his hands with their missing fingertips. Adults who recognise him sometimes seem pitying, sometimes disgusted, but always reserved. Children are not. He ignores any taunts and walks on, but he has felt close to vomiting on more than one occasion. And not just taunts. Part of a girls’ skipping chant goes “Captain Franklin ate his shoes, then he had to eat his crews”, and any time he hears a snatch of the rhyme it takes all of his willpower not to run. 

But today he is bundled in his scarf and the ground is covered in filthy brown slush too deep for anyone to skip. 

He stops at the bakers and at the grocers, counting pennies in his head as he buys what they need. 

He is still five minutes early for the library opening. He is nodded through by the man who unlocks the doors; he is here nearly every day except Sundays, and knows all the staff by sight. He takes his usual desk and chair, closest to the stove, and settles in to work. He rises only to consult a book or newspaper, otherwise working solidly. 

He is aware that some other regular patrons of the library are more sociable than he is, though any conversation is short and hushed. He does not want anyone to approach him, and no-one ever does. 

A little before midday he packs his things and leaves. He is always faster walking home. 

The smell of cooking fills the hallway when he opens the front door. He changes from his boots into slippers, then walks in the kitchen to find Tom by a pot bubbling on the stove. 

“Are you sure that you are all right to-”

Tom points a spoon at him. “No mother hen. It’s only soup.”

Edward puts his hands up in a gesture of surrender, but Tom does look strained. There is no point arguing now anyway. Edward takes off his coat, jacket and waistcoat, puts on a jumper and wraps himself around Tom’s back as Tom pokes the soup. He does not miss that Tom leans back slightly, puts some of his weight onto Edward. 

Tom’s jumper matches his own, both knitted by Edward’s mother. If knitting could heal the scars of the Arctic they would both be new men by now; but even if they now both have more socks than they know what to do with, it is all warmth and comfort and love and he treasures every item. 

They eat soup and bread together. He can see that Tom has overtired himself. It is always much worse in the cold. In summer Tom is less troubled by pain, and can do a normal day’s activities. If they do not need too much exertion. As long as they do not go on into the evening. 

As soon as they are finished, Edward stands up and puts a hand on Tom’s shoulder. “Bed.”

Tom just nods and stands. 

Upstairs he carefully helps Tom out of his clothes, down to his shirt. The muslin curtains at the window let in some of the weak afternoon sun while excluding prying eyes. The light is cold and grey and washes any remaining colour from Tom’s face; everything except his eyes, like tropical pools in city slush. 

He pulls back the covers and Tom gets into bed. 

“Do you want-”

Tom takes his hand and pulls him gently towards the bed. Edward toes off his slippers and gets into bed with him, pulls him as close as he can. 

Sometimes the pain is such that Tom cannot stand even the slightest touch, so Edward always asks. 

Tom will take nothing for the pain. Edward understands why he would not take morphia or brandy, but he will not have anything - not willow bark tea, not even embrocation. 

When the pain is at its worst Edward sits by the bed and reads to him, the only thing that he can think of to try and ease the pain. They have a stack of Penny Bloods - dashing highwaymen, valiant knights, heroic and unbelievable. (Never anything that might bring back memories. No vampires, no ghosts, no horrors unseen.)

But this is better. When Tom is merely sore and exhausted and Edward can hold him and pretend that he can soothe some of that away. 

Tom murmurs into his neck, “Tell me about the first time we shared a bed.” 

“What?” Tom often asks Edward to talk about something, but he has never asked anything as intimate as this. 

“You heard.” Tom kisses his neck. “Or do you not remember?”

He does not know why Tom is asking this, but he will answer. “It was in Halifax. We were waiting for the Navy to decide what to do with us, staying in a couple of inns. You hadn’t come down to breakfast, and Mr Bridgens came later to say that you were overtired, but should be well later. I went to your room to ask you if there was anything you needed. You asked-”

“You knelt by the bed. You could have asked me from the door, but you came in and knelt by my bed.”

He had. Was that important? 

“Yes. You asked what I wanted from you, and I didn’t understand, and you said that if I wanted penance or forgiveness I should go to church. That you were not there merely to assuage my guilt.” 

“I don’t think I said that.”

“Not in those words, but that’s what you meant.”

“Probably.” Tom sighs. “I was feeling like this. Tired and sore, but too many thoughts going round my head.” 

“I knelt there and said that I was sorry, that I had not wanted to offend, nor ever wanted to burden myself upon you. I begged my leave but you caught me by my wrist and said that you wanted to know why I had chosen you when I could have wished myself on Fitzjames or one of the men. I said that I didn’t know, because I didn’t.”

“I know.” 

“And you said - something like perhaps it was… was lust rather than guilt that drove me to you.” Edward swallows. Even remembering those words makes his stomach twist. A moment not just of fear, but of clarity. Of things suddenly fitting together, of making sense, followed by the awful realisation of what that made him. “I… I hadn’t known… before you said it.”

Tom’s voice is soft and gentle when he says, “You still can’t name it even though you keep a man in your bed.” 

Edward presses a firm kiss to Tom’s forehead. “Love.” 

“Love,” agrees Tom. “Though more than that as well.” 

Edward ignores the attempt to draw him into using the words he will not say, and continues. “I think that I was unable to speak. You said something like, ah, so it is that then, and you took your hand from my wrist and touched my face.” Touch like fire, touch that ran through his veins to his whole body, that had made his heart beat fast and his breath catch. Tom gently puts a hand to Edward’s face now, blindly as his own face is still pressed into the crook of Edward’s neck. His fingers caress Edward’s whiskers, and the fire runs in his veins again. 

“You blushed then as well,” says Tom. “Crimson.”

“You can’t see that I’m blushing.”

“I can feel it. Your skin is warm.” Tom’s hand moves from Edward’s face down to his hip and starts to creep around the front. “I can feel other things too.”

Edward gently moves Tom’s hand back upwards again. “Not if you do not wish it too.”

“Hmm.” Tom sounds more sleepy than disappointed and Edward knows he has done the right thing. 

“You said that you were too tired to talk of it then, and told me to come back in the evening. I… I am not sure what I did for much of that day. I forgot luncheon, and when I came to evening meal they asked me if I was starting a fever. That at least gave me an excuse to retire early. I think I was part-dazed when I knocked on your door.”

“You looked quite dazed. That might be why I kissed you rather than talking to you.” 

He has kissed Tom more times than he could count since then, kisses much better than that clumsy clash of lips. But that kiss is burned into his mind because it is the first, desperate and confused. 

“I am sorry that I kissed so poorly.”

“I agree that you were unpractised, but you were very enthusiastic.” 

“Then you sat me on the bed, and undressed me, and kissed me wherever you had undressed me, and I did not know what I should do in return.” 

“If I had wanted you to do something I would have asked. I was very happy with what I was doing. And I think that you were too, since you spilled in my hand almost as soon as I opened your trousers.” 

Edward thinks that he must be bright crimson now, with both embarrassment and desire. He cannot even put into words how he had felt on that evening; both completely base and physical, yet somehow raised above anything earthly. 

He can feel Tom smile against his skin. “You’re even warmer now. I should ask you to tell me these stories whenever I’m cold.” 

“You are doing as much of the telling as I.” 

“So tell me what happened next.” 

“You undressed as well, and brought me into bed with you. You kissed me again, and we touched and kissed.” 

“Are you going to say where I put my mouth? Or where you put yours? Or our fingers?”

“You may tell this story your way, I will tell it mine.” Edward will suck and be sucked, take and be taken, loves most of all when Tom is at his strongest and will hold Edward down by the wrists tight enough to leave bruises and take him so hard that Edward can barely move afterwards. But Edward will not talk of these things. The words are coarse and shameful and remind him of what he should be and is not. 

“So we touched and kissed and twenty other things besides.” 

“I thought that you would have me leave, afterwards. That would be how things between men were. But you held me in your arms like this, and I…” He presses another kiss to Tom’s forehead. “I don’t know the words for how much I love you.” 

Tom wriggles in a little closer in the embrace. They are quiet for a long while, and Edward thinks that Tom is falling asleep. But then Tom says in a slow and sleepy voice, “You fell asleep in my bed. I should have woken you and sent you back to your own. But you were beautiful. Not carrying the world on your shoulders. Wanted to keep you in my bed.” 

Edward doesn’t say anything, doesn’t want to interrupt Tom’s drift into sleep, but yes, he wants to keep him in his home, his heart, his bed. He has wanted that since - since before he could even put words to those feelings. 

He waits until he is sure that Tom is deeply asleep before sliding out of the embrace and tucking Tom securely under the covers. Cold air and workaday thoughts put paid to any lingering desire as he goes back down to the kitchen. 

He washes the dishes from lunch and wonders how long he should let Tom sleep; not too long or he will not sleep well tonight. Two hours should be sufficient. 

He sets to his correspondence. Formal letters are easy, as are letters to his mother. As long as he catalogues every physical symptom he and Tom have had (or have not had) since his last letter and details exactly what they have been eating she seems pleased. Writing to people he is close to is harder, but he knows they will forgive how short and terse his letters are. But he frets over the letter to his aunt. His life is small and tight-curled around itself; he has no news of other family, no news of mutual acquaintances, has not taken one step outside the routine which keeps him steady since his last letter. He eventually manages to fill his paper with meaningless words about the weather and and empty platitudes about his cousins in the Crimea. 

He avoids the news about the war as much as he can. The Crimea is another cold and unforgiving place. But he cannot ignore it entirely, not when his cousins are there, and there is the chance that his brothers will be too. 

Edward prays that they will never see such things as he has seen. 

The chime of the clock reminds him that he should wake Tom. He puts more coal on the fire first, so the kitchen will be warm for him. 

Upstairs he brushes the hair back from Tom’s face, and Tom’s eyes flutter open. 

“I can leave you if you need more rest.”

“What time is it?”

“Just after four.” 

Tom makes a slightly unhappy noise, sits up in bed and stretches. “Need to use the privy anyway.” 

“You are not going outside.” Edward uses his foot to hook the chamber pot from under the bed. 

Tom scowls, but Edward can see that even the slight cold in the bedroom is making his joints ache. 

Edward makes the bed as Tom uses the chamber pot, then takes the pot downstairs. He almost immediately regrets not changing back into his boots to go out to the privy; the icy slush is deeper than he had recalled, and soaks and chills his feet. 

He leaves the chamber pot at the foot of the stairs, and goes back to his papers, thinking of what work he can finish this afternoon. Tom soon joins him, and has one hand on the back of the chair when he suddenly stills. Then before Edward has a chance to protest, Tom has ducked under the table and stripped him of his slippers and socks, propping them by the fire to dry. 

Tom pulls his chair round to Edward, and lifts Edward’s feet into his lap, tucking them under his jumper, against his chest and hugging them. 

Edward is quite caught by surprise. He doesn’t think that he has had his feet hugged before. 

“I can’t work like this.”

“Should have thought of that before going out in your slippers. You have few enough toes, are you trying to lose the last ones?”

“I didn’t think.”

“No, you didn’t.” 

There is a long silence before Tom says, “I had thought to give the grate in the bedroom a proper clean, and didn’t consider how long it would take me in winter. I had intended to rest before making lunch. But there was no time.” Tom shrugs. “I didn’t think either.”

Edward smiles. “Well, if we can neither of us think for ourselves, we can think for each other.” 

Tom smiles and squeezes Edward’s feet. 

After a short while of sitting like this Edward decides to twist sideways to see if he can still write. Tom makes a disapproving noise, but moves his chair to help. So it is that Edward writes two formal letters to very respectable retired naval captains with his bare feet held under Tom’s jumper. 

Tom finally agrees that his socks and slippers are dry and allows Edward to have them back. Edward continues with his letters as Tom puts a mutton pie into the oven to warm before settling to some sewing. It is part of the trousseau for one of his cousins. Edward knows she will lie and say that her mother made it before she died, though her mother had been so wracked with consumption she had been barely able to lift a needle. This is the unselfish reason he needs to keep Tom as safe and well as he can; Tom, as far as he is able, fills the gaps in his family and friends, the gaps where a father, a mother, a sibling, a child, should be but are not. In the same way Tom mends shirts, his handiwork is invisible; the hole is gone, and outsiders will never know the loss. 

Tom says that sewing does not trouble him, that his pains are in his elbows, knees, hips, not hands. Edward thinks that he believes him. 

They eat and finish all the household tasks of the evening, finally banking the fire in the kitchen before going up to bed. It is early, but there is more comfort lying together talking or reading than sitting in the kitchen. 

In bed Tom surprises Edward once more, by kissing him fully, hand on his hip to start to draw up his nightshirt. 

“Are you sure-”

“I wouldn’t have kissed you like that if I wasn’t sure. If you don’t want-”

“No, no, I do-”

That earns him a chuckle from Tom, and more kisses. 

They are unhurried and gentle, careful not to disturb the covers and let cold air into their embrace. Their hips roll together, skin to skin, pleasure like a coming storm where each wave tops the last until he crests and spills. Tom is still moving, breath hot on his neck, skin like burning where he touches Edward, and it is all too much after he has spent but he can deny Tom nothing. He mouths into Tom’s neck and puts his hand to Tom’s cock and finally Tom is spilling with a choked gasp. 

Edward knows that he should get up, use some of the water they have brought upstairs with him to clean them both up. But here is warm and there is cold and he cannot. Tom is fastidious, but the cold is too much for either of them. Instead Edward uses the hem of his nightshirt to roughly wipe them both. 

Tom’s breathing deepens as Edward holds him. It will take longer for Edward to fall asleep, but he will eventually. The tides of Tom’s breathing are enough to keep him anchored here, even as the ghosts of the past creep in from the corners of the room. 

Tom is breathing and tomorrow will come.


End file.
